For the next three days the team roamed the cave system clearing out and mapping the whole place. They ran into a lot more bats and kobold patrols but didn’t manage to find any other monster speciase on the entire floor. They also managed to locate where the den was on this floor. They also didn’t manage to locate the obelisk but according to the map they had they assumed it was in the den.
“I think it’s still best to just sneak our way to the obelisk and activate it.” Donny argued as they were planning how to handle what they thought were the last few monsters.
“I disagree,” the scout said. “ Too many of those narrow tunnels are circular compared to the big ones that are more rectangular. I know we haven’t seen it yet but I can’t help but think that there is at least one roaming worm boss.”
“I am with him on that.” Nelly chimed in. “If there is even a chance that there is a worm that size we are better off handling it by itself afterwards and just dealing with the den in the open. It’s not like we are dealing with a village.”
“What’s the difference between the two?” Ajax asked.
He had heard the team refer to the overpopulated location as being a den or a village all the while before they inspected it but he hadn’t yet asked what the difference was.
“The number of non-boss monsters present.” Devin explained. “When dealing with a den we see a large number of groups without bosses moving through the dungeon. They were supposed to have a boss with them, it just happened to stay behind. A village on the other hand has all the boss minions stay with them. Those are almost impossible to clear out unless you outlevel the floor. Only way I know of doing it is with a strong terrain advantage like a strong choke point or something to collapse on top of them.”
Devin had practically integrated as part of the team over the last few days. His social skills didn’t have any sort of mind control but more just gave everyone a good feeling about him.
“We don’t need to take any risks with the obelisk, not to mention that we don’t know where exactly it is.” Jones said.
With that the team started its assault. Not for the first time the two porters found themselves sitting behind the rangers who had their backs to a wall as the fight began.
As he watched the flood of kobolds rushing towards their line once less than a minute after they started the attack Ajax didn’t feel as confident as he did during planning. Knowing all of those kobolds were at least level forty-four and had a lot of bosses sprinkled in scared him. This was the third scariest he had ever been only beaten out by waking up with a vampire about to kill him five years ago and, in first place, finding a dragon.
There must have been more than sixty kobolds coming towards them, that put them at a five to one odds if you didn’t count the nobles. This was also where humanoids showed their superiority over these kinds of monsters. As a general rule humans were well above monsters in a one vs one at these levels, the average adventurers having at least fifty-fifty odds in a two vs one but a five vs one would see all but the absolute best dead.
Stolen novel; please report.
That wasn’t the case if the fight got scaled up to a twelve versus sixty-seven. Humanoids had the massive advantage of specialization, teamwork and advanced strategy. The group managed to kill ten of them before they even got close enough to engage the front line.
From there however Nelly was fully focused on just stopping the kobold mages from getting a spell to land on them. All of her mana and casting was focused on shields or intercept spells.
Ajax had made quick work of two of the initial kobolds that darted towards him at the end of the line. With most of them being focused trying to break through the center. The fight then progressed a lot like a grate. The kobolds smashed into them and they had to move back slowly as they killed them just so that the bodies didn’t get in their way.
This was the first time Ajax had been on the front line in a fight like this. During the skirmish neither side saw all that many people just drop. Not only that but since there were at least twenty bosses present Ajax had already brought his mana down to four hundred after he killed his fourth kobold, even worse his stamina was under one hundred.
His lack of experience with this showed as he tripped over one of the corpses from his previous victims. It wasn’t enough to bring him to the floor but it unbalanced him enough that a massive hammer strike shoved him out of formation and caused him to drop his shield.
Separated he now quickly brought his back to a wall. In front of him were two kobold champions. Thankfully this variant had no access to magic but they made up for it with speed in and strength. One of them wielded the massive hammer that had knocked him aside and the other had two curved blades.
Seeing the relatively thick armor both of them had on Ajax decided that his hammer and axe were the best weapons to pull out for this. A quick dash in and out saw neither side take any damage. Despite being able to dodge their attacks Ajax found doing so too demanding to also let him land anything. Not only that but his stamina was also running a little low.
Feeling confident that they didn’t have their weapons poisoned, Ajax switched to one of his more riskier fighting styles, one that he had only tried out when sparring. As he charged in he no longer looked to dodge every attack, all he was going for was to avoid taking a big hammer blow and redirect the swords from hitting anything vital.
The change in style caught the kobolds by surprise, a well placed hammer blow saw the kobold champion have his wrist shattered, with only one arm remaining his hammer would lose a lot in terms of speed. The other kobold had Ajax’s axe take a chunk out of his thigh. All of this did come at a cost, Ajax had two decent size cuts on his left arm as well as on his right ribs.
Ajax knew his mana wouldn’t last much longer, having only two hundred and fifty left over but he was pleasantly surprised when he looked at his stamina. His stamina was now above one hundred, his skill [Berserker] was finally being useful.
It wasn’t like this was the first time he has gotten hit since getting the skill, but since his usual fighting style focuses more on avoiding hits and waiting for an opportunity for a mana enhanced attack to end the fight he didn’t really get a benefit before.
Looking to exploit the wounds he just inflicted on them Ajax dashed away from the sword wielder and looked to try attacking the hammer user. Only being able to use one hand to wield the hammer meant the best the kobold could do was land a heavy blow on his thigh as Ajax used his own hammer and axe to open a path and decapitate him.
Despite the injured leg the sword wielding kobold managed to still get close enough to put a slash on Ajax’s right arm as well before he opened up some distance. He charged forward again but almost face planted as his thigh sent a pulse of pain when it bore his full weight. It wasn’t enough to get him killed but all he could do was parry both swords leaving him locked in a strength contest with the kobold champion.
The two were locked pushing against each other for little more than two seconds before the sharp point of Bobby’s axe exploded from the kobolds throat splashing blood on Ajax’s face.
“You alright there kid?” The big man was breathing just as heavily as he was.
“As long as they weren’t using poison I should be fine.” he wheezed out.
Taking a look around and seeing that the battle was over Ajax collapsed on the spot gulping down big breaths.
“Looks like that was all of them, there are also no bats on the ceiling” the scout called out as everyone seemed to come together at Ajax’s spot. Compared to him the rest of the team hadn’t taken as many hits but they were just as tired.
The one downside Ajax had just realized about his way of healing was that it slightly increased the pain he felt from the wounds he was healing. In an attempt to focus on something else Ajax saw something new in his list of skills. [Berserker Style] was now among his Uncommon skills.